ty-second
year, Tethmosis III. is reigning alone in full vigour. While she lived,
the personality of the queen secured the devotion of her servants and
held all ambitions in check. Not long after her death there was a
violent reaction. Prejudice against the rule of a woman, particularly
one who had made her name and figure so conspicuous, was probably the
cause of this outbreak, and perhaps sought justification in the fact
that, however complete was her right, she had in some degree usurped a
place to which her stepson (who was also her nephew) had been appointed.
Her cartouches began to be defaced or her monuments hidden up by other
buildings, and the same rage pursued some of her most faithful servants
in their tombs. But the beauty of the work seems to have restrained the
hand of the destroyer. Then came the religious fanaticism of Akhenaton,
mutilating all figures of Ammon and all inscriptions containing his
name; this made havoc of the exquisite monuments of Hatshepsut; and the
restorers of the XIXth Dynasty, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of
the queen, had no scruples in replacing her names by those of the
associate kings Tethmosis I., II. or III. These acts of vandalism took
place throughout Egypt, but in the distant mines of Sinai the cartouches
of Hatshepsut are untouched. In the royal lists of Seti I. and Rameses
II. Hatshepsut has no place, nor is her reign referred to on any later
monument.[20]

Wars of Tethmosis III.

The immense energy of Tethmosis III. now found its outlet in war. Syria
had revolted, perhaps on Hatshepsut's death, but by his twenty-second
year the monarch was ready to lead his army against the rebels. The
revolt, headed by the city of Kadesh on the Orontes, embraced the whole
of western Syria. The movements of Tethmosis in this first campaign,
including a battle with the Syrian chariots and infantry at Megiddo and
the capture of that city, were chronicled from day to day, and an
extract from this chronicle is engraved on the walls of the sanctuary of
Karnak, together with a brief record of the subsequent expeditions. In a
series of five carefully planned campaigns he consolidated his
conquests in southern Syria and secured the ports of Phoenicia (q.v.).
Kadesh fell in the sixth campaign. In the next year Tethmosis revisited
the Phoenician ports, chastised the rebellious and received the tribute
of Syria, all the while preparing for further advance, which did not
take place unt